Saturday, December 20, 2008

Sydney munchies.

It has been a little while since I have been blogging, even though I seem to think of things I must blog about all the time. I blame insane working for some of it. Also, this weekend just past, I went down to the wonderful place that is Sydney! While I love my BrisVegas, I lived in Sydney for 6 years up until this last year and I miss my friends and the yummy food I could get down there.

I stayed with the lovely Leigh (ZB). We were going out to a Christmas party that afternoon, and Leigh the goddess of vegan cooking had generated masses of food in her kitchen.

We headed out to Mim's house for the Christmas party. I wish I had photos of the fabulous food, but I don't. So I shall just describe. Leigh had made for us her amazing tofu balls and a yummy tomato sauce, which we enjoyed in sub-style on bread rolls. To go with it was potato salad (with three different types of potato, including sweet potato) and a green salad of leaves, avocado and peaches in a lemony-flax oil dressing. Can you say NOM? For sweets, Leigh had outdone herself with three types of Melting Moments - chocolate, ginger and lemon. The lemon ones were my favourite. She also made chocolate cherry cheesecake, which tasted amazing!

The following day Leigh and I had a light Crunchola breakfast before strolling down King Street in Newtown, poking through some vegan cookbooks in the shops, trying to say hello to Shakespeare the cat in Books On King (but he wasn't there - boo), doing some emergency shirt buying for the silly Susan who had forgotten to pack enough clothes (hurrah for 50% off day at the Salvos) and finally settling down at Green Gourmet for my favourite - vegan yum cha!

Afterwards the essential vegan grocery shopping one must do when one goes to Sydney. At Vegan's Choice I picked up some Blue Sheese and some Cheddar Style Cream Sheese as well as some Vegan Organica Golden Coconut & Dark Chocolate bars. Down to Dr Earth and I picked up a Cherry Pie and a Cinnamon Roll Larabar as well as some raw peppermint chocolate and a bag of Lotus Savoury Yeast Flakes. I wish I could have bought so much more, but I had to fit it all in my carry on bag for the plane.

Dinner on Sunday night was leftovers from the Christmas party, before heading out to the main reason for my being in Sydney - the Kylie X 2008 concert. Totally amazing! I do love Kylie concerts a *lot*.

The next day I was heading home, and stopped off at Iku to get some lunch to take to the airport. I had one of their amazing Rice Balls. And I also tried their Laksa for the first time. It was a nice Laksa, but not particularly brilliant I must admit. Tragically, I have just found out that the main Iku kitchen is in Marrickville, where I used to live. And they welcome customers interested in seeing it. Why did I not know this then? Think all all the food I could have snaffled. Oh, cruel fate!

Then it was home to Brisbane. And on with life. But a truly fantastic weekend. I just wish I could have eaten more food.

Lover of Kittens and Kitchens

I have two great loves in my life. Firstly are the wonderful beings that are kitty cats. Second is vegan cooking in all its forms. So don't freak out if you find a stray cat hair settled into your cupcake.
I am a cat vet and I am also lucky enough to share my life with my fabulous girls - Dim Sim (small and black) and Sahara (cinnamon Abyssinian). Also my angel cat Gizmo, who may have left us but is never forgotten. I also have a long suffering bird (cats and birds are unmixy things), a cockatiel named Spock. I've been a vegan since September 2000, and haven't looked back since! I don't really make my own recipes, what I do like to do is make other people's recipes (I have shelves of vegan cookbooks) or eat out, take photographs and then share the results.